stc4blues wrote: From today's NYTimes:

The new study shows that several of the states doing the best anti-corruption work had to endure years of scandal to get there. The state with the best grade (B+) was New Jersey, which may be surprising considering its reputation for cronyism and payoffs. In 2005, however, after years of embarrassing scandals, the state passed some of the toughest ethics laws in the country. Lobbyist gifts are prohibited, state contractors cannot give to campaigns, ethics training is mandatory for state employees and an ethics board has real power to enforce the laws. New Jersey still has problems, including lax financial disclosure laws and no ban on lawmakers? holding two public jobs, but it is doing much better than New York, which got a D.